Development and impact of teachers’ professional competence – a longitudinal study over 10 years based on the COACTIV-R-project

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Professional competence of teachers is considered as one of the key determinants of professional success. Hence, key questions are how the cognitive and motivational-affective aspects of professional competence develop in the long term and how sustainable these aspects may impact the teachers’ professional success. Previous studies often compared teachers with more or less experience in cross-sectional studies or examined prospective teachers over short time intervals. However, there has been a lack of longitudinal studies that systematically investigate the development of the aspects of teachers’ professional competence over longer periods of time. This is the starting point of the planned research project, in which the participants of the COACTIV-R study will be re-examined. As part of the COACTIV-R study over 800 teacher candidates were examined during their induction phase (German Referendariat) with regard to key aspects of professional competence as well as personality traits and characteristics of the learning opportunities of the induction phase. In the planned project we will firstly describe the developmental trajectories of professional competence over the 10-year time interval and identify resources for a positive development as well as risk factors for an unfavorable development. Secondly, we will examine how sustainably the aspects of professional competence (acquired during teacher education at university and during the induction phase) predict the later professional success of the teachers. Based on a multicriterial approach we will use various indicators of professional success, such as the instructional quality, teachers’ well-being, their educational commitment (for example, the use of learning opportunities) and the quality of teachers’ professional cooperation. At the same time, we will combine multiple methods to assess the indicators of teachers’ professional success. In several studies, the students’ perspective on instructional quality as well as the subjective view of the teachers will be supplemented by procedures such as behavioral checklists and a diary study (to measure teachers professional well-being) over several days. The project thus generates knowledge of how well teacher education prepares for working life and how the professional competence acquired during teacher education contributes to continuing professional development and predicting the future professional success of teachers.